CHAPTER VI.

THE DRAMA.

THERE are two methods of narrating an action in which several persons have been engaged. One narrator is dispassionate and, to a certain extent, unsympathetic. In recalling and describing the event, he looks, as it were, from a distance, and is content to tell in every-day language and in every-day style what the people did and said. But another narrator has the mimetic power, and by his very nature, instead of merely describing the event, is forced to realize it. Divesting himself of his own cricumstances and of his own character, he throws himself into the circumstances and characters of the persons he is describing. Imitating in turn the expression, voice, and ideas of each of them, he does the deeds and speaks the words of them all in rapid succession, and actually makes the whole scene real to us. As we look at him going through the representation with mobile countenance and flexible voice, we forget his own personality, and imagine that we see the different persons of the story appear, and speak, and act. This man is essentially a dramatist. He is really producing and at the same time acting a drama.

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A drama may have one or other of two complexions. dramatist may take a sombre view of human life. He may feel that man is the creature of a mysterious destiny, coming he knows not whence, going he knows not whither, having restless passions within himself which are ever bent upon rying him to ruin, surrounded by selfish fellow-creatures who are always ready to sacrifice him to their own interest, permeated and enveloped by the mysterious forces of nature which may crush him at a moment's warning, and drifting on slowly and inevitably to a dark and silent future. If the dramatist takes

this view, he composes tragedy. But he may look at the brighter side of man's destiny. He may have the feeling that, after all, human life is not so very dismal. The world is full of sunshine, and flowers, and pleasant scenes, and happy creatures, and genial men and women, and diverting foibles, and smiles and laughter. All these are God's gifts, and were intended for our good. Why should we not enjoy them, and It is our privilege, nay, our duty, to do So. If the dramatist takes this view, he writes comedy.

laugh and be happy?

But whether he writes tragedy or comedy, the dramatist exercises a wonderful function. Other narrators give a mere description of an event. He, by the help of the actor, gives the event itself. They, at the very best, trace it faintly on the imagination of their hearers. He presents it before the hearers' very senses. It is a wonderful faculty which he has, and was surely intended for some very important end. What that end is, we shall now consider.

The end of some so-called dramas is empty amusement, and this end they achieve by burlesque, pantomime, farce, and every kind of tomfoolery. But what gives nothing save mere amusement, is not worthy to be classed under the designation of literature and to be called a drama. It is the legitimate drama, therefore, whose purpose we now proceed to discover.

If the question were asked, What kind of literature is most dissociated in the public mind from religion? the answer would be, "the drama." But strange to say, the drama owed its origin to religion. In Greece, India, China, it was originally a religious ceremony, and it was intended to promote religion. We can easily imagine how this happened. Let us suppose a large crowd of uncivilized people assembled to keep a holy festival. What is the method by which they could be made to participate in the ceremony? A speech addressed to them by the priest would not serve the purpose, for it would only be heard by a few. A hymn sung by a chorus would be more audible, but too monotonous. Some device would need to be tried which would appeal to the eye, and yet be sufficiently

intelligible. The only way would be to get up a dramatic action in which the actors would represent, if not in audible language, at least with expressive gestures, the wonderful deeds of the gods. This very naturally would be of the form of tragedy. But tragedy, as a matter of course, would be followed by comedy, just as in the present day, when a serious play becomes very popular, a burlesque of it is sure to spring up. Comedy, in fact, always accompanies tragedy as her shadow, and, therefore, an exaggerated and grotesque likeness of her form. Hence it happened that comedy, too, came to be performed at the festivals as a religious ceremony.

But among the Greeks the drama, in course of time, ceased to be a religious ceremony; and when society became enlightened and refined, it became a work of art. The illustrious tragic writers, Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, represented ideal heroes, demi-gods, and gods, doing great deeds, enduring great woes, and hurried on to their fate by a remorseless and all-controlling destiny. Aristotle, in his "Poetics," asserts that these writers had a great moral purpose in view, and that this purpose was to purge the minds of the audience through pity and terror-pity for the sufferings that they witnessed, and terror lest these sufferings should befall themselves. But this opinion may be questioned. The great dramatists, like the other Greek artists, had no other end in view than to represent ideal beauty or ideal grandeur; and in their eyes there was no grander spectacle than a hero, assailed by the pitiless storms of adverse fate, yet preserving his courage undaunted, and his dignity unruffled, and, when resistance was no longer possible, submitting to his doom with sublime resignation. With the Greeks, therefore, in the height of their civilization, the drama was simply a work of art.

In the middle or dark ages the drama had ceased to be considered a work of art, when it occurred to Christian priests that it might be used as a means of teaching religion to the rude and unlettered mob who came to church on saints' days. Taking, therefore, the events of sacred history, they formed them into

a kind of play which they called a miracle or mystery, and per sonated the biblical characters for the edification of the people This kind of entertainment was first devised by Ezekiel, a Jew, in the second century. The first theatres were the churches, and the first actors were the priests themselves. But many were scandalized by the profane way in which the sacred doctrines were treated; and to satisfy these, the teaching of the drama was limited to morality. These plays, which were called moralities, were introduced into England in the reign of Henry VI. In them, personifications of the virtues and the vices were exhibited as models or warnings to the multitude.

To be a religious rite, to be a work of art, to teach religion and morality—these were the chief purposes which the drama was supposed to serve. But it will easily be seen that not one of them is sufficiently comprehensive to exhaust all the capabilities of dramatic representation. It was reserved for Shakespeare to give, not only the most complete example, but also the most complete definition, of this species of composition. "The true end of playing," he says, 66 is to hold the mirror up to nature"-to hold the mirror up, not to a few people, or even to a nation, but to human nature, to the whole of humanity; to allow all classes, from the very highest to the very lowest, from Hamlet down to Caliban, to see their own image; to represent all kinds of men; in other words, to teach a complete knowledge of human character.

That this is the true purpose of the drama there can be no doubt. The drama is an imitative art, and imitates all kinds of people in all their different moods and actions. It represents, in other words, human character in all its phases. To illustrate this, let us contrast the drama with the other kinds of works that delineate man's nature. We refer not to the Bible, which is the great exponent of the secrets of the heart, but only to such uninspired works as histories, biographies, moral treatises, and novels. In these, as in a sort of anatomical museum, the various motives and actions of men are preserved, laid out, and labelled with more or less accuracy. But